


Absolutions at the Grey Gull

by orphan_account



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Episode Tag, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Cancer, Missing Scene, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4131205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene for S2's Fear and Loathing, picks up right where the episode left off. Nathan's worst nightmare, accidentally revealed to Duke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolutions at the Grey Gull

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst watching this episode recently, I wondered what it was that Nathan saw when he looked at Jackie. On a different note, I love the complexity of Duke and Nathan's relationship, and so I've tried to explore that here a bit more.
> 
> I'd love to know what you think!

"Here. On the house."

"I don't need your pity beer," he said, still looking down at the rose petals.

"Nathan, if I was pitying you, I'd have brought vodka."

He looked up at Duke. "Bring me vodka then."

-0-0-0-

Busy as the Gull was that night, Duke kept one eye on Nathan throughout the evening. Nathan wasn't doing much of anything except staring moodily into his glass.

Just before closing time he looked over again at the table. Nathan was gone.

"Hey," he said to the waitress collecting empties, "you see where Nathan went?"

She gestured with her head. "Out on the deck."

All dark, no stars, and the silhouette of a man looking out into the black. Duke tugged his fleece tighter round his neck to ward off the night's chill, and approached him cautiously. "You know I can't let you drive home, right?"

"I'll sleep out here."

"It's pretty cold," he said, and then remembered who he was speaking to. "Sorry. My bad."

"Don't be. I deserve it."

Duke sighed and looked back at the waitress wiping down tables. He didn't have time for this. But he asked anyway. "What do you mean?"

"I deserve not to feel. I deserve to be troubled. I'm glad Ian took Jackie's trouble with him, and I'm glad he gave me mine back."

"Nathan, what are you talking about?"

Nathan turned then, and he was too close, his vodka-soaked breath warm in Duke's face. "She came to see me today. She reminded me why I'm like this."

"Who, Audrey?"

"No. My mother."

A chill ran down Duke's spine. This conversation had just turned a corner into crazy town.

He strove to keep his tone light. "Nathan, you're drunk. Which is fine by the way, I'm not one for judgeyness, but I'd feel a whole lot better if you came inside and drank some coffee"

"No."

"You're really going to stay out here all night?"

The silence was his answer.

"Fine. Give me your keys and your gun." When neither were forthcoming, he said, "if you don't hand them over, I'm calling Audrey, and trust me, if you have any feelings for her at all, you don't want her to see you like this."

Nathan begrudgingly gave up the gun and car keys, and Duke left him standing out there on the deck. There were still a few customers at the bar; remaining stragglers too bored or too lonely to go home, but eventually they left. He locked up and was tempted just to head on home.

But Nathan was still outside, and so Duke made his way up the stairs to the room above the Gull instead. He wasn't sure why he was staying. Solidarity, perhaps, forged by recent events - helping a man dig a grave meant something in his book, even if he wasn't quite sure what. And perhaps it was solidarity that made him leave the doors to the balcony open, despite the rain that was beginning to fall.

-0-0-0-

 _Haven, sunlight, birthdays, sledding, his mom and his dad, laughter, her hair... and then a shadow, the C-word, stillness, and his mom, reaching for him_ -

He couldn't feel Duke's hands on him, shaking him awake, but he heard Duke's voice in his ear - "Nathan, wake up! It's just a dream. Nathan!"

All of a sudden he was awake, and scrambling away from Duke, and someone was panting, making little sounds of distress, and then he realised it was him. And even though he hated being touched by people, he was glad of the way Duke hauled him up and manhandled him into the empty bar. Everything was tilting, and when Duke pushed him down onto a barstool and told him to sit like he was some kind of dog, he didn't protest.

"You are going to drink lots and lots of coffee, my friend," Duke was saying from somewhere, but his head was suddenly very heavy and so he rested his forehead on the wooden counter, tuning out Duke's disembodied voice and focusing instead on the smell of taco sauce on the counter until Duke was calling his name again, pulling him upright.

"Drink."

He wanted to tell Duke to leave him alone and to leave Audrey alone too whilst he was at it, to stop pretending and just go back to being plain old bad guy Duke... but it was too much effort, so he drank the coffee instead.

After a while things became less...blurry. More solid. Like the beams of wood above him. The coffee pot, dark and rich. And Duke, waiting for him to talk.

"You don't have to talk."

Oh.

"Plus I'm not that kind of bartender anyway," Duke continued. "But you should probably talk to someone. And soon."

"I'm fine," he said, automatically. Maybe that should be his new Chief motto. Get it printed on name card or something. _Nathan Wuornos, Chief, Haven PD. I'm fine. It's all fine._

"Nathan, you're not fine. Your dad just died - make that two dads, and all night you've been rambling on about seeing your dead mother. If that's your definition of 'fine', then buddy, I'm freaking terrified for you."

"I did see her." He didn't mean to say that, but it came out anyway. "The troubled girl, the one who makes people see their worst nightmares. I looked at her and I saw my mom."

Duke leant forward on the counter. "Your mom's your worst nightmare?"

He shook his head and swallowed. "It was after she got sick. She used to pat my cheek, tell me how proud she was of me... But then the chemo wasn't working, and her body was dying, and I'd smell it on her. The decay. When she touched my face I'd flinch. I couldn't help it. And she knew. She stopped touching me after that, cause every time..." He could tell he was crying even if he couldn't feel it. Could see it in Duke's expression.

"Nathan - "

He had to get it out. Had to finish. "Not long after she died, I stopped being able to feel. It was my punishment. That's why I'm like this."

Duke was shaking his head. "No. You're sounding like the Rev."

"Maybe he's right." He couldn't keep his voice steady. "Maybe the Troubled are the way we are for a reason. It's our fault."

"Come on, you don't seriously believe that crap, do you?"

"Tonight I do."

"Nathan, you were just a kid."

"A kid who couldn't stand to be touched by his own mother."

Duke straightened. "Look, you want to blame yourself. I get that. But the Troubles are bigger than you. They go back generations. Your 'not feeling' thing - that's not your fault."

He knew Duke was trying to help, for whatever reason known only to him, but Duke wasn't the authority on the Troubles. He wasn't even Troubled. He couldn't know what it was like.

"What about Audrey?" Duke said then, and there was that familiar jolt of electricity at the mention of her name.

"What about her?" He didn't mean to sound confrontational, but it came out that way anyway.

"Think about it - where does she fit into all of this? The Rev's saying that Troubled people are cursed, but how do you explain her? Nathan, she's making people better. If you don't believe in yourself, believe in her."

"I want to."

Duke smiled, but there was something in his eyes that Nathan didn't like. "Well," he said slowly, "that's a start."

They didn't say much to each other after that. Rain was falling in torrents, cascading down the hillsides and cleansing Haven as it slept, and Nathan didn't feel it at all as he walked the long miles home.

_Finis_


End file.
